The role of empathy and perspective-taking in preventing aggressive behaviors has been highlighted in several theoretical models. In this study, we used immersive virtual reality to induce a full body ownership illusion that allows offenders to be in the body of a victim of domestic abuse. A group of male domestic violence offenders and a control group without a history of violence experienced a virtual scene of abuse in first-person perspective. During the virtual encounter, the participants’ real bodies were replaced with a life-sized virtual female body that moved synchronously with their own real movements. Participants' emotion recognition skills were assessed before and after the virtual experience. Our results revealed that offenders have a significantly lower ability to recognize fear in female faces compared to controls, with a bias towards classifying fearful faces as happy. After being embodied in a female victim, offenders improved their ability to recognize fearful female faces and reduced their bias towards recognizing fearful faces as happy. For the first time, we demonstrate that changing the perspective of an aggressive population through immersive virtual reality can modify socio-perceptual processes such as emotion recognition, thought to underlie this specific form of aggressive behaviors.

The relationship between anger and aggression is imperfect. Based on work on the neuroscience of anger, we predicted that anger associated with greater relative left frontal cortical activation would be more likely to result in aggression. To test this hypothesis, we combined transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the frontal cortex with interpersonal provocation. Participants received insulting feedback after 15 min of tDCS and were able to aggress by administering noise blasts to the insulting participant. Individuals who received tDCS to increase relative left frontal cortical activity behaved more aggressively when they were angry. No relation between anger and aggression was observed in the increase relative right frontal cortical activity or sham condition. These results concur with the motivational direction model of frontal asymmetry, in which left frontal activity is associated with anger. We propose that anger with approach motivational tendencies is more likely to result in aggression.

No abstract